Dungeon Core Online 33 Chapter 33

"About time you're back." James was greeted by Rue's face once again, the pixie nearly pressed up against his floating orb. She drifted backwards with her wings, a small smile on her face. "I missed you Glyax."

James couldn't help but smile at the reception, her mood had definitely changed since they first met, for the better. Whereas before she had come across as condescending and borderline abusive, he could feel her emotions had warmed towards him, and he was quickly growing attached to the pixie. James had to wonder what the AI's were like for the other dungeons, and if he had just gotten lucky with his.

"So, what have you been up to while I've been gone?" James was pulling up his screens as he chatted with the pixie, quickly browsing through all of the data. He was nearly empty on resources, just as he planned, with his maximum sitting at 2500. James figured the first thing he did, while he waited for his level 5 mob research to complete, was to begin building his new floor. He already had a vision that would work with the tier 2 mobs at his disposal, now he just needed to bring it to life.

"Were you even listening to me?" Rue's voice had raised a pitch, and the pixie was staring at him, her hands on her hips. Oops, James had zoned out after asking her about her time while he was in the real world. That wasn't going to end well for him.

"Umm." James glanced from the screens, to the pixie, to the screens again. "You're so pretty." He panicked, and those were the first words out of his mouth. He really needed to work on his interaction with the pixie.

Rue stared at him hard, before a soft smile crept up to her face, her head shaking. "You're an idiot." The pixie sighed and glanced at the screens he had up. "So, what's the plan, oh wonderful dungeon core?"

"For now? How about we build up floor two. Afterwards, we can go about assigning mobs." James pulled up his dungeon creator tab and selected his tier two floor. Suddenly they were once again teleported to the empty expanse, the bright sun bathing them in its warm glow. Before he selected his resources, preparing to spend a few of his precious tokens, a thought crossed his mind.

"Hey Rue." The pixie turned at his words, her face questioning.

"Yes Glyax?"

"Can you remind me to put a trapped treasure chest on my first floor, in the barn?" He had nearly forgotten his conversation with Dwight earlier in the day. James definitely wanted to set up that trapped chest. By using his alert settings for his instance, he would be able to receive a notification whenever a group neared the chest. Meaning he would be possibly learn what Dwight's in game name was. Revenge was going to be sweet.

"You want a trapped chest, or a mimic?" Rue was glancing over his orb, taking in all of the screens he had up. She was staring at his research table.

"I don't have mimics."

"Yet." Rue pointed at his current research. Rank 5 mob research would finish in a few hours, while rank 5 boss mob research still had over 15 hours remaining.

"When your rank 5 mob research is finished, you will unlock mimics, because you also have rank 5 loot and rank 5 traps completed." The pixie crossed her arms, grinning at him. "That's the secret requirement for mimics."

"Oh really? What other things have secret requirements I can unlock?" If James had eyebrows as a floating orb, he would have one raised right then.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out." The pixie started laughing as she did a backflip in the air, grinning at James. "I'm not that easy, that I'll tell you all my secrets after a single night of immersion together." She finished her statement with a wink, and James's mind once again broke for a moment. He silently thanked and cursed the developer that had come up with her character. Whoever it was, definitely loved anime.

"Well then, guess I'll just keep my plans a surprise as well." James grinned to himself. Two could play this game. Though he had to wonder if being passive aggressive against an AI pixie was the mature thing to do. Shaking that thought, he turned back to his task at hand. He had a floor to create, and 24 hours to make it the best floor he could.

The first thing James did, was burn a dungeon token to fill his resources to their full 2500. That left him with 17 of the tokens, and James was willing to use 7 more for his task, which would leave him with 10 tokens. That meant he had a total of 20,000 resources to spend for his floor. The adventurers, and Rue, were going to be so impressed by this floor.

James started by drawing out a massive expanse, 900 x 900 yards, and added his influence into it. This task cost him 1800 resource points, but it was worth it. What he had planned, was going to be grand. He would be the best dungeon out there.

Next, James flipped through the dungeon creator, till he got to the buildings section. He could choose from a wide variety of individual buildings, all with varying costs. The cheapest were single story houses, costing him 100-200 resources a piece, whereas large buildings, such as skyscrapers, were in the 2000 and up range. James glanced at them, imagining the city scape he wanted to build, with broken buildings and cracked roads. He was imagining a town in the wake of a war, forgotten, partially reclaimed by the land. Suddenly, 20000 resources didn't seem like enough.

"Well, here goes nothing." James whispered as he started his task. He still had 700 resources from the first token, and after looking at the buildings, decided he needed to take a new approach. If he were going to create the city he wanted, he needed to understand its layout first. The easiest way to do this, was to begin making roads.

"Whatcha doing?" Rue was watching as he went into the roads portion of the Dungeon Creator tab and began drawing out his roads. While he had doubled the size of the space of his dungeon, he intended to leave a lot of it as open expanse, with his mock town at the center of the instance.

"Playing Sim City 9000." The Sim City games had been along for a long time, and the latest, 9000, was so sophisticated city planners even used it for their actual work. James had gotten bored of creating cities in the game rather quickly, mainly because he hated the politics that went into planning a city. Luckily, when you were making a city for steampunk dinosaurs, there were no politics.

"Are you doing civilized dinosaurs? Doesn't that feel like a 1990s sitcom?" James glanced at his pixie, with no idea what she was on about. Who would make a show about dinosaurs living in a city? That sounded ridiculous.

"No, I'm doing a post-apocalyptic city." Damn, she got him to share part of his plan. Tricky pixie.

"Ohhh, I like that." Rue landed gently atop his orb, her eyes filled with excitement. "So, what are you waiting for?"

"For my pixie to stop interrupting me." James started chuckling as he began drawing out his roads, planning his city. He realized it wouldn't be the true size of a city, but he just needed to simulate a downtown area. He wanted to give his smaller dinosaur mobs the ability to ambush adventurers from various alley ways, while leaving the town center, as well as the outskirts of the town, for his larger mobs. Thanks to his mob research, he was now able to give his mobs set spawn points, as well as basic commands, such as areas to patrol, or how they aggroed on adventurers. He really planned to take advantage of this new power on his second floor.

"Fiiiiinnnnnne, I'll keep quiet." Her eyes were mischievous as she looked down at him.

"Really?"

"Probably not." She started chuckling as she waved her hand, a bowl of popcorn appearing before her. "But I'll do my best."

"This is all a game to you, isn't it?" James activated another token, refiling his resources as he continued drawing out his roads and alley ways.

"Well duh. DCO is a game, after all." Rue shot him a wink, before pulling out a handful of popcorn, popping a piece into her mouth. "Now, get to work. I want to see how you summon your mobs, as well as what your boss and mini boss are like."

James had forgotten that he got access to a mini boss on his second dungeon floor. Filled with new excitement over what that might entail, while also a bet hesitant about RNG for his boss mob, James put his full attention to his task at hand. Worst case scenario, he would have at least 10 dungeon tokens left, to reroll for his boss mob. James already knew what he wanted for a boss, and he was willing to gamble to get it.

Chapter end